NYMF's 2008 'Next Broadway Sensation' Winner Shawna Hamic Debuts OUTSIDE THE BOX at Joe's Pub, 11/2

New York Musical Theater Festival's Next Broadway Sensation 2008 winner Shawna Hamic makes her solo concert debut with Outside The Box at Joe's Pub on November 2 at 11:30pm.

For the past five years, hundreds of actors have auditioned for the opportunity to be crowned NYMF's Next Broadway Sensation. NYMF's popular annual talent competition exposes the freshest new performers to an audience of fans and musical theatre legends alike. Some of the past contestants have gone on to make their Broadway debuts in South Pacific, West Side Story, and Mary Poppins and head on tour with Legally Blonde and In the Heights.

In 2008, Shawna M. Hamic beat out the competition with her powerhouse voice, incredible charm and sass, and her incomparable strength. Backed by Ross Patterson and featuring direction by Broadway star and Obie award winner Donna Lynne Champlin, Shawna will take Joe's Pub by storm with her solo cabaret: Outside The Box, a musical journey full of pep, verve, courage, and determination.

Shawna M. Hamic first appeared in NY with NYMF in The Screams of Kitty Genovese as Betty, and has been a HUGE fan of the festival since. She recently closed The Toymaker, which was part of this year's festival and was named Critic's Pick by Backstage. Shawna has lived in NYC going on 8 years. During that time, she has been seen in such shows in NYC as The Molly Maguires, Genesis, Metropolis (with Joe Brooks), Church (at the Public), Geeks, Freaks, & Good Ol' Boys, Lbs.- The Musical, Glen or Glenda, and More To Love. Regional productions include Once Upon A Mattress, Hello Dolly, Ragtime, Les Miserables, Disney's Beauty and the Beast, How to Succeed..., Nunsense, The Music Man, Into the Woods, Three Penny Opera and the West Coast Premiere of Make Me A Song. Shawna has also toured with the Walt Disney Company and was honored to represent American Musical Theater as General Cartwright in the award winning production of Guys and Dolls in Macao, China. Shawna was named the winner of the New York Musical Theater Festival's Next Broadway Sensation 2008. For more information go to www.ShawnaHamic.com.

Tickets are $15 in advance and $20 at the door and can be purchased by visiting www.joespub.com.

The New York Musical Theatre Festival, now in its sixth year, has premiered more than 200 new musicals since 2004. The largest musical theatre event in America, NYMF has been hailed as "the Sundance of Musical Theatre" and is widely regarded as the key source for new material and talent discovery. NYMF is the flagship program of National Music Theater Network, Inc., a 501(c) (3) not-for-profit organization. NYMF 2009 is presented in association with BroadwayWorld.com, Production Resource Group and TheaterMania.com, and is supported by Back Stage, Barnes & Noble Booksellers, BroadwayBox.com, BroadwayInsider.com, Broadway.TV, Clear Channel Spectacolor, DFD-TV, Frank & Camille's Fine Pianos, King Displays, Manhattan Movement & Arts Center, New World Stages, NASDAQ OMX, Next Magazine, PMD Promotions, Queerty.com, Reuters, Sweet Caroline's, Tekserve, TheMenEvent.com, The Tank, and Times Square Squared. Major supporters include The ASCAP Foundation, BMI Foundation, Inc., The Broadway League, The BWF Foundation, The Nathan Cummings Foundation with the support and encouragement of Jaimie Mayer, The Charlie & Jane Fink Charitable Fund, The Rodgers & Hammerstein Foundation, The Shubert Foundation, and The Theater League. NYMF is supported, in part, by an award from the National Endowment for the Arts. This program is supported, in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, in partnership with the City Council. NYMF's programs are made possible with public funds from the New York State Council on the Arts, a state agency.

For more information about NYMF, please visit www.nymf.org.